Thursday's Daily Pulse

What you need to know about Florida today

| 8/21/2014

Women Small Business Owners Struggle to Get Loans

Women are a growing force in the business world, but if they own a company, they may still struggle to get a loan from a bank. Women owners have long been at a disadvantage getting loans. Women's business loan approval rates are between 15 percent and 20 percent below men's, according to the online lending marketplace Biz2Credit.com. [Source: AP]

An easy-to-read guide from Florida TaxWatch, now makes it easy for Floridians to see how the state’s education system stacks up compared to the rest of the nation. The report, How Florida Compares – Education, compares Florida students’ achievement in math and reading, the cost for education, and enrollment figures, among other data. Read the full story and see more from Florida TaxWatch.

Quintessential Florida product's popularity is shriveling

Florida orange growers continue to be battered along two fronts: accelerating declines in U.S. orange juice sales and in the fruit in their groves. [Source: Sarasota Herald-Tribune]

Florida fall food festivals serve up goodies for foodies

Hungry? If you are in Florida this fall you can bring an appetite to various food festivals, including one of the nation’s largest, the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival in Orlando. [Source: Orlando Sentinel]

Turpentine once flowed from North Florida

In Florida's not-so-distant past, before strip malls and subdivisions, an industry thrived here in which rough men did even rougher work in the state's seemingly limitless and hazardous pine forests: Turpentine. [Source: AP]

ALSO AROUND FLORIDA:

› First U.S. medical isotope facility to take root in Alachua [North Central Florida Business Report] The first medical isotope manufacturing facility of its kind in the United States will be making its home in Alachua County. UF’s John Carlson said the upcoming facility represents millions of dollars of capital investment and more than 150 new jobs with average annual salaries of about $75,000.

› Florida ALS chapter seeks more 'ice bucket' money[Orlando Sentinel] The Florida chapter of the ALS Association is seeking more funding from the popular ice bucket challenge sweeping the country. Some big Orlando companies have participated in the challenge to raise awareness and funding for ALS, a debilitating disease also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

› Commercial land prices soar as uses shift[Miami Today] It’s not just the scarcity of supply and high demand for commercially zoned land that’s driving land prices up, but also the competition that’s emerged from the increasing number of investors who are finding other uses for the properties.